


color of us

by Ceta



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Victor's post-GPF angst, but it's okay cause everything is fine, liveloveyoibing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 08:40:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14257128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceta/pseuds/Ceta
Summary: It’s pink. Unrefined in the unevenness and jagged corners, but it glows happily in his palm, a faint rainbow of color swirling in its depths. Victor can feel the warmth radiating from it, can see how the light pulses like Yuuri’s breathless laughter, and his heart catches in his throat.“Pretty!” Yuuri exclaims as he brings his face close to look at it, eyes wide with inebriated wonder. The light dances across his eyes, makes them sparkle, and he’s so beautiful that Victor can’t breathe.





	color of us

**Author's Note:**

> For the second LLYB bing prompt _magical realism_ : magic crystals!
> 
> Check out Cottonee's [wonderful fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14206005) with Yuuri's POV and Jade's amazing [art](https://jadeydoodles.tumblr.com/post/172738449847/liveloveyoibang-mini-bing-2-based-on-2-fics-by)!!

He’s long since stopped wondering how the crystals shoved away in his suitcase and in his pockets outweigh the medals around his neck.

 

They haven’t changed colors in well over five years. His crystals remain a dull, slate gray, void of the glossy shine that make even the most misshapen crystals a gift, a single shard of the thousands of miracles lying dormant in their bodies. 

 

Victor stares at the stone of a crystal set in the cradle of his hands and wonders why he feels that aching void in his chest eating away at more of his heart. It doesn’t hurt anymore, not really, but it exhausts him down to his aging bones, twenty-seven years and counting, too little years left before they’ll collapse under the strain Victor has put them through ever since his first unsteady step on the ice. 

 

He turns it over in his hands. It’s smooth to the touch, as always, polished to perfection now after years of making them.

 

Victor has poured his entire being into skating for the entirety of his life, has chased after that gold medal with a single-mindedness that people both praised and criticized, has grown to only know skating and nothing else. Despite Yakov’s coaching, skating is a one-man job: Victor is the one who puts himself through the paces, Victor is the one who choreographs his programs, Victor is the one who jumps and spins and tells the story caught in the mind.

 

Victor is the one who pushes himself up when he falls.

 

Tucking the crystal away into his suitcase, Victor takes his time to get dressed for the banquet, lagging, stalling. He stands in front of the mirror when he’s nearly finished and smiles at his reflection, sees the charm and charisma but not the heart, and turns away without a second glance.

 

(It’s no wonder, after all these years, that loneliness is the closest companion to his frayed heart, that it’s the one emotion Victor’s crystals can mold to perfection.)

 

* * *

 

Victor’s heart pounds so hard in his chest it feels as though it’s desperately pleading with him.

 

_ Stay, hold -  _

 

“Be my coach, Victor!”

 

_ Don’t let him go _ .

 

He feels the tell-tale phantom sensation tingling just beneath the skin of his palm, twisting and morphing, but before it can become tangible, before a familiar gray rock drops into his hand with the weight of years past within it, Yuuri grabs his hands and pulls him into a dance, two, three, all of them blurring together with the rush of euphoria that tumbles from Victor’s lips in a bright, careless laugh, unpracticed and startling. Yuuri grins alongside him, dashing and dark-eyed, and Victor feels that pulse of  _ something  _ between their hands again when Yuuri twirls him around.

 

Crystals tumble from their hands, and more often than not, they have to shove them away into the pockets of their pants or their jackets. They’re all so bright; Victor was captivated upon the first one that pressed against their interlocked palms, and at first he thought it was Yuuri’s, the bright yellow of it foreign in his pale hands.

 

“I got one,” Yuuri laughed, swatting away the hand Victor had held out to give the crystal to him. He wiggled the multi-colored gem in his fingers, grinning. “Tha’s yours.”

 

Victor was too stunned to respond, and Yuuri was the one who plucked it away from his awed gaze and into his pocket. He locked their hands together and led them into another dance, and with each dance, each smile Yuuri sent to him, each ridiculous move he made while expecting Victor to respond in kind, another crystal appeared in his hand.

 

They’re glowing by the time Yuuri ends it all, both their pockets bulging with the sheer amount of crystals. He dips Victor, fingers just brushing against his cheek. Their shared joy mingle together as they laugh, and when Victor pulls away, he feels something sharp jab the inside of his palm and looks down, fingers unfurling to reveal the stone underneath.

 

It’s pink. Unrefined in the unevenness and jagged corners, but it glows happily in his palm, a faint rainbow of color swirling in its depths. Victor can feel the warmth radiating from it, can see how the light pulses like Yuuri’s breathless laughter, and his heart catches in his throat.

 

“Pretty!” Yuuri exclaims as he brings his face close to look at it, eyes wide with inebriated wonder. The light dances across his eyes, makes them sparkle, and he’s so beautiful that Victor can’t breathe. 

 

There’s a moment where all they do is stare at the crystal, but it’s cut short when Yuuri suddenly lists to the side and stumbles against his near fall, clearly too intoxicated to stay upright any longer. Victor tucks the crystal away, settles it next to the gray stone he slipped into his pocket earlier, and helps Yuuri to his empty room.

 

“Call me,” Victor tells a half-asleep Yuuri after he settles him into bed. He jots down his number using the pad of paper and pen the hotel room offers to all its guests and turns in time to see Yuuri smile at him right before he knocks out.

 

It’s not an answer, but Victor feels the warmth pressing against his thighs, his hips, his heart, and can’t help but hope.

 

* * *

 

It’s Russian Nationals, and Yuuri still hasn’t called.

 

Victor settles into his room with two crystals tucked away in the pockets of his suit: the first one he made during his time at the GPF banquet, and the last one. He sits on the edge of the bed, takes out the yellow one that’s still glowing so brightly, and studies it as he thinks.

 

Yuuri hasn’t called, but it’s fine. Both of them are busy, and Yuuri probably doesn’t want to change coaches in the middle of the figure skating season, and Victor should really be thinking about something  _ other  _ than Yuuri and his smiles and the way he so seamlessly suffused his world with color. But he can’t.

 

Victor is going to be a five-time World Champion, is already a five-time GPF gold medalist, and people would think he’s never felt helpless before with the confident way he holds himself on the ice.

 

Except he  _ is  _ feeling helpless. Right now. Because of Katsuki Yuuri.

 

_ Give it time _ , he tells himself, and then there’s the feeling of something in his palm again, growing and growing and growing until it coalesces into another crystal, this time a murky purple. It lays beside the yellow one, so uncertain in comparison.

 

Hope should be a brighter color, Victor thinks before he tucks both the crystals away and gets ready for bed.

 

Days later, Victor stands at the top of the podium, another gold medal around his neck, and thinks as he smiles for the cameras,  _ He’ll call soon _ .  
  


* * *

 

Yuuri does not call soon. It’s a few weeks before Worlds, and Yuuri bombed his nationals, and Victor still hasn’t heard from him.

 

Makkachin huffs from where she’s sprawled across his lap, like Victor’s spiraling thoughts are interrupting her afternoon nap, and Victor cracks a small smile even as he turns the pink crystal with restless fingers. It looks the same as ever; for one reason or another, Victor thinks it’s dimmer than how it shone at the banquet, though that may be attributed to Victor’s current upset.

 

“Look, Makkachin,” he murmurs as he holds out the pink crystal for her to see, not for the first time. Makkachin sleepily thumps her tail against the couch but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge Victor. “I wonder if he has one like this, too.”

 

_ I wonder if he was as happy as I was, that day. I wonder if he feels the same way. _

 

All around him, on the counter and on the tables and on his drawers, in the dimmest corners and in the coldest rooms, are the crystals that overflowed from him the day of the banquet. They’re points of color and warmth in his picture-perfect home, bright yellows and oranges and reds and purples, and they don’t even  _ match _ the cool blue-greys of his apartment, but somehow Victor likes them there, likes how they glow unashamed as if they belong where they were placed.

 

In his room, he knows, is the murky purple crystal from nationals. It’s dark, not at all like the luminous crystals scattered about his home, but Victor can’t help but keep it. He feels like he’d be throwing away his faith in Yuuri if he did, and Victor can’t bring himself to let go of the first thing that’s ever made him feel so alive so easily.

 

He pets Makkachin, curls his fingers around the pink crystal.

 

He can wait a little longer.  
  


* * *

 

 

Worlds comes and goes, and the sliver of hope Victor held onto shrivels up and dies once he steps back into his apartment. The colorful crystals welcome him back with twinkling lights, and Victor feels something in his chest twist at the sight. He looks away, greets Makkachin, who’d stayed with Georgi while he was gone, with half-hearted pets, and doesn’t even unpack before he’s stepping back out with his duffel slung over one shoulder.

 

He’s tired, his feet ache, but Victor leaves with every intention of going to the rink.

 

He doesn’t want to stay at home and think about what could have been, doesn’t want to look around and see the color of Yuuri’s laughs, or his touch, or his warmth surrounding him when the man himself isn’t - doesn’t  _ want  _ to be - there.

 

Instead, Victor is going to skate. It’s always helped him before, skating until he is too tired to think, and Victor doesn’t have anything better to do. It’ll be good; a change of pace, something to do other than pine after a man who doesn’t want Victor anyway.

 

As he settles into the rink and pulls out his skates, he ignores the grey stone shoved haphazardly into the corner of his bag and hurries onto the ice.

 

For hours afterwards, he skates.

 

* * *

  
  


Victor wakes up one day to approximately a billion notifications - and counting - on his phone.

 

_ Watch this _ , Chris’ message says, once Victor is able to rifle through all the Instagram notifications, and while wary, Victor presses the linked video below.

 

He watches, feels something stir back to life as Katsuki Yuuri skates to  _ Stammi Vicino _ , beckoning and mellow, and curls his fingers around the new crystal in his hand.

 

_ Finally _ , he thinks, but he’s smiling, too relieved to care.

 

* * *

 

Hasetsu is pleasant in the way all small, homey towns are. Snow lines the sidewalks and stay precariously piled on trees’ branches and leaves, and Victor didn’t expect it at all when he made plans to come here, but it’s fitting. Surprising.

 

Just like Yuuri.

 

It isn’t hard to find Yuuri’s home, either, though it does take some time for him to check in. Between his meager Japanese and the meager English the woman at the desk - Yuuri’s mother, perhaps? - speaks, he’s ushered into the bath-house instead of a room, but he goes along with it. He’s sore, after all. A soak in the springs will do him good.

 

Not ten minutes after, Yuuri bursts through the door and stumbles to a stop, eyes wide as he stares at him.

 

“Vic- Victor. Why are you here?”

 

Despite the way Yuuri gapes at him, Victor focuses instead on the sprout of warmth and love and hope in his chest. He thinks back to the crystals in his apartment half a world away and stands to his full height, holds out a hand he hopes, one day, Yuuri will take, and says, “Yuuri!  Starting today, I’ll be your coach!”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!


End file.
